Six Leadership Practices For 'Wicked' Problem Solving

By prophesy, the kingship of ancient Asia was promised to the solver of a legendary dilemma. In the city of Gordium a nobleman's chariot was lashed to a pole with a devilishly intricate knot: who, pray tell, would undo it? The tangled strands had thwarted countless attempts, until a self-confident Macedonian appeared. Drawing his sword, he simply sliced the knot asunder. Problem solved-- by the future Alexander the Great.

(Photo: Shutterstock)

Continuing Knotty Problems

Businessleaders lack such brisk solutions for their problems today. Global competition, networks, and stakeholder empowerment are transforming former manageable, bounded challenges into endless Gordian knots. Shut down a business and face angry customers, employees, and communities. Roll out a global product and you’re haunted by second-guessing investors, supply chain weaknesses, or “suddenly appearing” regulations. Small wonder “complex problem solving” is listed by the World Economic Forum as the top workforce skill for 2020—as it was for 2015.

Put your sword aside: today’s challenges are too big and messy to be solved by one person, no matter how clever. The critical skill is now less about raw, "Rubik’s cube" IQ of any individual leader, and more about enabling savvy humans to collaborate and find solutions.

Kate began with some background on complex problem solving, whose methodology first developed in the environmental and international diplomacy arenas. She then turned to the example of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, highlighting how certain leaders had catalyzed treatment breakthroughs.

“The history of AIDS illustrates the evolving science of tackling hyper-difficult and complicated problems—so-called ‘wicked problems.’ ‘Wicked’ means hard to diagnose and involving multiple stakeholders and domains. Such problems are also relentless: solutions are temporary, as issues keep morphing into new problems.”

Wicked Spreading

I interrupted: “Can we say then that more problems business leaders face today are 'wicked' too?" Kate paused.

“Well, to a point—there are plenty of well-bounded, short-term issues that don’t need large-scale collaborative solutions. But complexity, unintended consequences and the unrelenting nature of many problems are now a growing part of every business leader’s decision-making.”

“Consider why. Proliferating networks push many problems to touch others, further and further afield. Connectivity and information transparency makes us more aware of how any issue can affect other institutions and populations. With democratization of power in this connected, transparent world, more people also feel empowered to advocate—or oppose—company actions. The cliché of the butterfly wing rippling effects around the globe is truer than ever.”

I returned us to the core question: "So how do great leaders tackle these challenges now?"

“There’s no universal blueprint—different leaders vary in style and effectiveness in different contexts. But a few behaviors are still best in class.”

“Be clear,” she cautioned, “leaders can do everything right and the problem still may not get solved. But if they don’t think and act in a few particular ways, chances of progress will be slim. And missteps can actually aggravate the problem.”

Listening to Kate, I heard six winning practices.

1. Bring the whole system to the table.

“Because wicked problems affect multiple stakeholders, all constituencies must be represented—authentically—in the process. Great leaders see challenges in system terms—and do homework to get the right people involved, with the right perspectives represented: doing stakeholder analysis, understanding dependencies, key interests, etc. The big mistake is thinking you can make faster progress by just 'working small.' Those left out won’t contribute their valuable knowledge, and may even sabotage the solution.”

“Thus the example of AIDS: Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, ‘expanded the table’ in the early days of the first outbreaks. Against all advice—and blistering public criticism-- he pushed to include AIDS patients in a collaborative effort to develop treatments. He rightly saw that unless patients’ experiences and concerns were heard, the approaches of the researchers and regulators would be incomplete—and ultimately fail. It was a critical turning point in the saga.”

2. Your first job is not devising the solution—it’s to build and sustain trust around the table.

“Many leaders are accustomed to being the 'solution hero.’ Ego mistake! The winning role is facilitating the best answer to emerge, collaboratively, from all relevant stakeholders.”

“Trust is the social lubricant. Great problem-solving leaders build that in many ways—making agendas transparent, fostering relationships among stakeholders (‘offline’ and one-on-one, as well as during group sessions), developing behavioral guidelines for workshops, acting with personal integrity, employing third-party facilitators, etc.”

“The MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation has created a multi-stakeholder partnership (NEWDIGS) to improve drug innovation, to get new (and safer) treatments to patients faster. The director, Dr. Gigi Hirsch, a trained psychiatrist, is skilled in building bridges across diverse members: researchers, payer organizations, patient groups, clinicians, regulators, and pharmaceutical representatives.”

Dr. Gigi Hirsch (Photo Credit: G. Hirsch)

“In its early days, she invited company members to present live case studies of promising new drugs, for feedback from other stakeholders. It was risky for pharma representatives to ‘open the kimono’ to competitors and powerful regulators and payers. Gigi asked everyone to agree to ‘safe haven’ rules to protect confidentiality, ensure personal safety, and mitigate power abuses. She kindly but firmly upheld the rules when tested.”

“Her leadership paid off. People learned to trust the process and each other. As actionable ideas were developed, trust deepened further. It was a virtuous cycle.”

3. Your next job is ensuring short-term wins for all, on the way to the longer term system solution.

A complex, collaborative problem-solving process involves time, effort, and resources from everyone at the table. Leaders have to preserve the interest and will of the group to keep going.

“People vote with their feet. Even with good intentions, members fall away if they don’t see personal benefit, relatively soon. Dialogue fatigue has killed many would-be collaborations. You have to manage a delicate tension to keep the process alive—ensure participants achieve near-term value for themselves even as they’re working on a shared problem that might not pay off for years.”

Dr. Isaacs referenced NEWDIGS again. “The NEWDIGS case study method was an ingenious way to create short-term value and achieve long-term goals at the same time. Companies got unvarnished advice from people they wouldn’t normally interact with, and they could use the insights right away back home. The cases also provided a window for everyone to see how the whole system needed to change, to get drugs to the right patients faster. That was something everyone wanted, so people stayed engaged.”

“NEWDIGS’ work inspired a European multi-stakeholder pilot that is now working on broader system change for drug approvals. Gigi’s leadership approach created the ongoing will for a years-long effort to achieve that.”

4. Build ongoing, adaptive learning into the process.

“Wicked problems by nature keep mutating—but people just like to finish things. Problem-solving leaders counter this human impulse by setting expectations that the group’s solutions will always be incomplete. But they stay optimistic and build paths forward, by intentionally integrating learning and learning systems into the process from the get-go. That builds sustainable capacity for inquiry and adaptation in light of new information and issues that inevitably arise.”

Kate offered another example from AIDS research.

“In the 1990s, another breakthrough came when the Surrogate Marker Collaborative Group—a partnership of pharmaceutical companies, federal researchers, and regulators—agreed on a faster and simpler marker of drug effectiveness: measuring HIV virus in a patient’s body. Building consensus about this marker vastly accelerated research and drug testing because everyone could see more quickly whether a new therapy was working. But because AIDS is so complex and therapies affect patients differently, they couldn’t stop there. So the group continued research to keep refining the measurement system.”

5. Be aware of your power, and share it responsibly.

Complex problem-solving requires leaders to know their appropriate role—sometimes to step forward with initiative, sometimes to hold back for others to lead.

“Leaders in these situations can’t issue commands as usual. Yet they do have power to influence partnerships. That power might be coercive, financial, or exercised through social influence. Different situations call for different applications. Sometimes that’s restraint from exercising any power, or sometimes it’s sharing it with others. Protecting trust demands leaders be self-aware of how and why they exercise their authority.”

“Dr. Fauci’s leadership in the HIV research also exemplifies sharing power responsibly. Not only did he invite patients to the table, he ensured they got an official seat on every committee and working group. It wasn’t just lip service: the patients were granted real decision rights, just like everyone else. When Fauci reversed his initial bias to keep patients at arms’ length, it had great symbolic significance. It was a key step in creating a successful collaborative culture in the overall effort.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifying before Congress. (Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

6. Manage relationships at home in tandem with those of your problem-solving community.

Building collaboration among many stakeholders to find “win-win” solutions can be all engrossing. But if you take your eye off your own constituency back home, you can lose your ability to implement actions agreed by the common group. Or worse, face a backlash that undoes progress.

Kate referenced some of her earlier research.

“A large coal-burning power company formed a partnership with environmental groups and socially conscious investors to develop more sustainable policies. It got off to a good start, with a lot of trust, and progress on many fronts. But then a major setback occurred.”

“During partnership discussions about certain regulations, a separate division of the power company unilaterally began a lobbying campaign to eviscerate the proposed regulation. When this was leaked, all the historical trust was destroyed overnight—and shared problem-solving ground to a halt. Some of the environmental organizations launched a vicious public campaign in retaliation, which infuriated the company people in turn.

“Both sides had elements that acted counter to stated intentions and good will of the people collaborating at the table. Leaders had failed to ensure alignment of some key constituencies back on the 'home front.' It took years to rebuild constructive momentum after that.”

Looking Ahead

Kate Isaacs finished by reflecting on the humility needed by any problem-solving leader.

“The American humorist Josh Billings once said: ‘It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.’”

“His quote really applies to messy, complicated problems: what you think you know often doesn’t apply—and it can even get you into real trouble.”

“Great leaders humbly suspend much of what they think they know—about the problem, other stakeholders’ needs, what a final answer might be. But my research tells me that great leaders do know a few things about how to inspire and steward the necessary collaborative process. The six practices we discussed aren’t the whole story-- but they’re certainly a good start for anyone’s next ‘wicked’ challenge.’”